Meta Forecast for Creator Economy in 2023

I've distilled hundreds of predictions from 20+ experts which you should know about

January 26, 2023

Hi! Welcome! I'm Konstantin Kanin and this is my creator business & culture newsletter. You can subscribe right here:

I know what you’re thinking: how many more predictions can a person withstand? There are too many of them and they’re all so scattered.

So, I decided to zoom out to see the big picture of what the industry is discussing and forecasting in 2023. First, it was a fun exercise to learn more about the processes occurring inside the creator economy. And secondly, I thought, one person could make a mistake or miss something important, but the collective mind is more likely to notice some kind of a trend.

Inspired by 's annual Meta Trending Trends, I put together forecasts from 20 industry experts, and gathered them into topics, ordering by the frequency of mentioning a particular prediction with a short summary and keywords.

You can find a complete list of all experts with profile links and their forecasts at the bottom. I definitely recommend starting your 2023 by following them on Linkedin or Twitter if you strive to know what's going on inside the creator business.

🔮 #1. Artificial Intelligence

No doubt, AI is the hottest topic that has divided the creative industry. Where some see a threat, others spot new opportunities: AI will simplify many of the creators’ tasks and allow them to scale faster while creating new types of jobs.

Keywords: generative tools, no-code, disruption, scaling, optimization, regulation, copyright law.Interconnected topics: Cross-platform, Content translation

🔮 #2. Mergers & Acquisitions

Everyone will be involved in M&A activity: talent agencies, influencer-marketing firms, social media companies, studios, and creator-led companies. Another phenomenon that will continue to grow is companies acquiring the rights to the video catalogs of creators.

Keywords: consolidation, acquisition, creators as buyers, rights to the video catalogs.

🔮 #3. Private communities

The growing importance of owning your audience (their email addresses, phone numbers, etc.) without the need to be forever tied to a specific platform.

Keywords: super fans, membership, authentic content, recurring revenue, token-based, platform-less.

🔮 #4. Youtube domination

In 2022 we watched Instagram's attempts to compete with TikTok, but now it becomes obvious that TikTok's main competitor is Youtube. It will dominate long- and short-form content creation.

Keywords: Shorts, vodcasts, live streaming, ad revenue share.

🔮 #5. Content translation

You can’t ignore the success of MrBeast channels in several languages, so we’ll see more English-speaking creators who translate their content into Spanish, Portuguese, and Hindi. I don’t understand why it took so long, but with the arrival of AI tools, the process will obviously accelerate. See EzDubs, Unilingo.

Keywords: AI, dubbing, going global.

🔮 #6. MORE creators

While monetizing becomes less taboo and diversity and representation in the creator economy are on the rise, we’ll see more and more creators join the industry. Besides, entrepreneurs become creators.

Keywords: diversity, representation, gen X.

🔮 #7. Creators hiring employees

Creators will continue to hire staff (producers, operators, editors, designers) while expanding their business, and AI will contribute to the creation of new types of jobs.

Keywords: scaling, expansion.

🔮 #8. LinkedIn for creators

This may sound biased because the majority of industry experts talking about Linkedin talk about it… well, on Linkedin, but you can definitely see more and more Youtube and Tiktok creators joining Linkedin to discuss business, hiring, and launching new products.

Keywords: b2b creators, linkedinfluencers.

🔮 #9. Creators building offline brands

That’s simple: more creators-turned-CEOs start launching their consumer brands. See 's Creator Packaged Goods.

Keywords: CPG, consumer brand, equity stakes.Interconnected topics: Hiring

🔮 #10. Cross-platform content

The topic of content scaling goes hand in hand with private communities. The risk of being present on only one or two major platforms became too high so creators start using AI-based tools to expand their content, experiment with new formats, and get additional income streams. Jellysmack is among the most frequently mentioned.

Keywords: vodcasts, live streaming, live commerce.

🔮 #11. Brands hiring creators as full-time employees

UGC creators are all over. We’ve seen many examples of how employees become influencers for their own employers. It would be great to see that they get a fair reward for this and brands start hiring them full-time.

Keywords: in-house creator

🔮 #12. No TikTok ban

Those experts who mentioned TikTok in their forecasts agreed that full banning is unlikely, but we will definitely see new restrictions. Another reason to think about cross-platforming and owning your audience.

Interconnected topics: Cross-platform, Private communities, Youtube domination

And here is the promised list of creator economy insiders and experts which you definitely should follow, and their 2023 predictions:

What’s after the creator economy?

Metalabel.xyz in partnership with co—matter released a zine called “After the Creator Economy”, which is basically a collection of interviews with artists, thinkers, and builders about the future of the creative industry:

"The creator economy is very individualistic and lonely, which is completely opposite of how humans naturally behave. Working together as a metalabel opens up the opportunity for collaboration and breaks open the isolation into a more natural formation of groups."

"It makes it so that every creator doesn't have to design their own brand, build their own audience, and run their own sponsorship strategy to make money. Multiple creators can share those resources — brand, audience, sponsorships — together."

A quote about our relationship with platforms that I really liked:

Podcast CPM vs Youtube CPM

One of my favorite podcasts about internet culture, The Content Mines, has been closed, which is sad. But its host, Brian Brodrick, described the reasons behind this decision and it totally makes sense: it’s difficult to grow the number of listeners, their podcast stagnated at 5,000-6,000 downloads an episode a week, and with such metrics, it is hard to find advertisers to receive some significant income.

There's a post on Linkedin by Avi Gandhi, about the pros and cons of monetizing a podcast compared to a YouTube channel. Avi's main conclusion: podcasters can make significantly more revenue than YouTubers with a much smaller audience. But, podcast growth is significantly more difficult.

Basically, the recommendation feed inside podcast apps is just bad, the search even by episode name is terrible, and there is no search for the content itself at all, except perhaps for one-off projects like this one.

UGC Creators’ Nightmare

I came across this video about how brands treat UGC creators and tend to pay them around $10 per video (here is another example — around $16) and it reminded me of the same type of abusive relationship that brands had with micro-influencers of the late 2010s. Yes, this is a matter of supply and demand, but given that more than 50% of kids (or even more now?) want to become content creators, perhaps they’ll soon need a school class on how much the content they create should cost. On the flip side, part of me believes that young creators nowadays know perfectly well what they’re doing and why, and this price dumping is not accidental.

@kolimarksmedia

UGC creators listen up!! #ugctips2023 #howtobeaugccreator @kolimarksmedia

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